The People Business: What We Need to Know in Q2 2024

I would say for me, it goes back to, you know, the statement that doctor p made is you can't over communicate this enough to your employees and and helping them to understand why the change is is impacting them and how it's going to happen to the organization even if it's not impacting them. You know, for have that open dialogue and communication to be able to help people to understand where these changes, of the law have occurred. Welcome to the Apple one podcast. I'm your host, Brett Howroyd. This podcast consists of three different running series. And today, you are listening to our The People Business series, where we have conversations focused on HR, labor law, and really anything HR professionals or executives in general would find interesting. But, honestly, I reserve the right to go down whatever rabbit hole or tangent I find interesting. So let's get started with today's topic. Apple one podcast listeners. I'm your host, Brett Howroyd, and I'm super excited about today's topic. So the theme of today is what we need to know in q two twenty twenty four. We're gonna address things that those of us in the employment world are talking about, thinking about, maybe already planning about, and we have two experts on the show today who are gonna dive into that with us. Disclaimer though, act one is putting this podcast together for educational and entertainment purposes, not to advise officially. This is not legal advice. So with that said, grab your coffee because you might need it for this episode. I'm gonna start by introducing our guests. First, I'd like to introduce doctor p who is have been on this podcast many times if you're a listener. Doctor P is a senior member of the ActOne Group of Companies overseeing ActOne Government Solutions, which designs and delivers staffing solutions for government agencies and performs HR consulting, for any organization in the government or private sector. He is a DE and I workforce planning, HR strategy, and people analytics subject matter expert, and he's a faculty member of organizations such as the Society for HR Management, we know that as SHRM, and, the Public Sector HR Association. I could go on and on and on. He's also an author of a a book that, he can talk about later on. But ladies and gentlemen, doctor p. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Thank you for having me, Brett Howroy. It's always a pleasure to be on the show. And he called me Brett Howroy because we have another Brett on the show today. Brett Hill, welcome to the Apple One podcast. Thank you. Brett Hill is the senior director of client services optimization for for AgileOne, which is part of the ActOne group supporting workforce management and talent acquisition services and technology. So I think we have two very important folks on the call today to dive into what's on your mind because I'm sure you're thinking about these topics. So let's get started. The first topic we're gonna talk about, which everyone is talking about, is the federal exempt minimum salary increase. Now I think a lot of us are headed to SHRM in Chicago soon, so let me say from SHRM, the overtime rule raises the standard salary threshold in two phases. Workers who do not earn at least forty three thousand eight hundred and eighty eight dollars as of July first twenty twenty four, right around the corner, and who are not otherwise exempt, Exempt will have to be paid overtime even if they are classified as a manager or professional. The salary threshold rises to fifty eight thousand six hundred fifty six dollars, a year as of January first twenty twenty five. After that, there are automatic increases to the salary threshold every three years. I could keep on going, but I think folks know what I'm talking about at this point. So no doubt, this is a big one that a lot of companies, large and small, are thinking about. This is how this is gonna work. I'm going to invite Brett Hill to discuss, what an enterprise company's approach, should be to this. So imagine you're the listener who is responsible for a company that's in multiple states, maybe multiple countries, but in this case, maybe multiple states is is relevant. You employ lots of people at different pay ranges across different geographies. How do you want to approach this? Kinda what's going on in in your approach? So Brett Hill's gonna tackle that, then I'm gonna invite doctor p to to tackle this with a smaller midsize company hat, maybe a company that isn't in as many locations, doesn't have as many staff, but still needs to comply with the law. So, Brett Hill, with that said, why don't you put on that enterprise hat and because you have a lot of enterprise experience, before AgileOne. Why don't you tell us how you're approaching this and and what's going on in your head? Thank you, Brett. So, what I would say is is really with this, it could be, for small, medium, you know, large sized companies. So you may hear, you know, some of some redundance from doctor p and I, with this. But, really, all employers with exempt employees making less than the minimum, salary requirements for exempt workers to nonexempt For those individuals in HR, they should also consider what is gonna impact them as an organization, for their economy and also for their morale. And this could impact, you know, lots of reclassification, within an employer. So a few tips and tricks that I would say is is identify your current exempt employees who earn less than the new, annual threshold, And I'm gonna give you the second one of fifty eight thousand six fifty six because if that goes through, you know, time wise, you're looking at, you know, January of twenty twenty five. Estimate how much overtime those employees, currently work. Analyze your budget, you know, to help, assess your compensation options. Most employers did not budget for this change in twenty twenty four. So based on the number of employees, that you'll need to be reclassified at an estimated amount of overtime, it could cost companies more. Review your job descriptions for those exempt positions to verify that the duties are are accurately listed and ensure that employees in the same roles aren't classified differently because that could prompt discrimination claims. Develop a communication plan for those moving from exempt to nonexempt status to minimize negative impact on morale. Consider placing restrictions on overtime and explore ways to track nonexempt workers' hours. Determine whether changes are needed, in other policies such as telecommuting and mobile device usage to current overtime and working off the clock. And then, yes, there are several exemptions, you know, to this minimum salary requirement for white collar exemptions under the Fair Labor, Standards Act. Positions that are not subject to the minimum salary requirements include business owners. So it could be someone who has twenty percent, equity interest within the organization. It can be computer professionals. And the requirements that they state with this is you need to have, you know, a minimum of regular salary at least twenty seven dollars and sixty three cents per hour. Teachers are also, exempt from this practice of law or medicine. Those licensed are currently practicing, but it doesn't apply to those, that are interns or in a residency program. Outside sales employees, employees, in motion picture producing industries, and then administrative employees in educational establishments as well. So, Brett, I was trying to keep track of all those steps as you were going through them, and there were a lot. But that's good. What it sounds like is that first, there's a data gathering exercise that a large company is going to need to to do before they make any decisions. Is that right? That is correct. So you're gonna need to gather, this information on your staff around how they're getting paid, around, their job titles and make sure that their job titles because that's the first thing is your job title has to meet the threshold or not salary aside. Right? So there's a lot of analysis that companies are going to want to do before they make this call. Then you named a lot of useful cascading policy changes or steps that that, professional is gonna wanna analyze before, they they come up with their final plan. Is that is that what I heard? That is accurate. So, you know, really taking that time first to be able to review, you know, those roles, those job descriptions, to be able to make sure that, you know, they're aligned appropriately. And then as you look through them, determining then, you know, what the compensation is. Do you think a large company will run into a situation where a lot of staff, in states that have already enacted, salary, you know, requirements that are higher than the federal one, are gonna have a chunk of folks who are already meeting the requirement, and then a lot of folks in other states where they're going to need to, let's say, do something with those folks. Do you think that can cause maybe disruption where, you know, I have a lot of staff in, let's say, California, and then I have a lot of staff in, let's say, South Carolina that are gonna be that I need to make a decision on. Do you get where I'm going with that? Do you think that will cause issues or or no, you don't foresee that as being a a thing? I think it it possibly could, and it goes back to really the statement that I had made, you know, considering what the economic structure is of the organization and then also, you know, the morale impacts, of of that reclassification. And what I mean by that is you may have, you know, an employee that, you know, is considered to be as as nonexempt or, excuse me, as exempt. And if they go to a nonexempt status, that may impact their morale because they're really believing that they should be considered, still within that exempt status. Doctor p, why don't you put on the small to midsize hat? Maybe you're, let's say, a, a company that's already in a state that has minimum wage requirements above the the federal, rate. Can you ignore this law completely, or do you still have things that that you need to take into consideration with this coming down, coming down the the pike? You can't ignore the law because no one is above the law of the land. And you, as a business owner, have to or anybody, big enterprise, small to medium sized business, you have to also take into consideration your state laws. So it it is a very complex exercise as, Brent Hill has explained. There's a lot of things you need to do. Wage audits may result in pay compression. For a small business owner, though, it may have a greater impact, despite the fact that if you look at, research, the percentage of payroll compared to operating costs is a little bit less for small businesses, an adjustment like this. And normally, for small businesses, it's about thirty percent. Twenty to thirty percent of your operating cost is with payroll. For larger enterprises, and it depends on the industry, manufacturing versus non, it could be up to seventy percent of your operating cost is in, confidence total rewards, compensation, and benefits. But for small businesses, those penny those incremental penny increases, it's gonna have a tremendous impact on, yeah, on the outcome for a shareholder. And if it's a shareholder, it happens to be an individual, you know, they have to take some food off of their table and spread it across, the enterprise. So they have to stay informed. Here's what I would tell small businesses. Get some additional help. So reach outside to, external SMEs to say, help me, and it's not gonna be cost prohibitive, and it's gonna mitigate the risk of you having some problems in the future. But get some help to do some wage audits, set up processes where you can stay informed of how these regulations are changing, and then you make adjustments accordingly. You might even do you know, I call it have somebody else do your mess for less. Just outsource your payroll to somebody else, and then have them do the work. Payroll all the employees on somebody's w two, and then let them deal with the issues. You just get the the the time and the skill. But that that aside, do you wage audits, review your job descriptions, make sure the essential functions are in compliance with, FLSA, or if you misclassify somebody, ask Microsoft. I think this is about ten years ago, they they had some impact, compensatory damages, punitive damages that were in the tune of ten million dollars. So and I know that's a big enterprise, but for a small company, that could put you out of business. If somebody comes in, I call him Sam Stickler. Sam Stickler comes in from the department of wage and hour and does an audit and said, let me look at your job descriptions and make sure you have people classified correctly. So all of that to say, review your job descriptions, make sure they meet the exemption criteria as outlined by the Department of Labor, and if not, change the job description, and that's gonna have an impact as well. Brett Hill kind of alluded to that. If I take you from exempt to nonexempt, and now you're hourly, I have to manage that. Now you can't do work until pigs fly and and and, you know, working twenty hour days. I have to stop you at forty. Guess what doesn't stop, though? The work. So it's piling up. But I'm trying to manage my finances, and there's a a sweet balance. So for smaller companies, it become it becomes much more impactful. You know? I always tell people large companies struggle, but it's our relative. Small companies struggle at a different level, compete at a different level. So do your job descriptions. Make sure if you have people managers in the workplace, train them. Be transparent with all of your employees, especially with the current labor market being predominantly generation y and z, they ask questions, and they want to know the answers. Yes, when, no, why not. So train them on why you're doing something. Don't just say it's done. Train your managers that in the interim, when you change somebody's compensation from exempt to nonexempt, and now you gotta manage their time, there's some outcomes of that, by the way. We may talk about it. Like, they may say, I I need to make up the wage difference, so I'm gonna start putting in extra hours. We'll talk about that later, I hope. But you have to train your managers. You have to spend much more time with people who are impacted. So you would not talk to your employees, you know, once a month, set up meetings to meet with them once a week. You have to ask them how you're feeling, how you're doing, how can I help you? The work still needs to get done. If you don't, these changes are law. So I have to comply, but there's some some outcomes of that that deals with my company's brand. You know, what are people saying about me on Glassdoor? Whether it's true or not, I'm trying to be externally competitive for humans and internally equitable. So I have to do job analysis, comp studies, comp audits, have to document my policies in my handbook. Small companies, many time, operate from the hip. You need a, an employee handbook, and then you spell these things up. Tell them, spell it out, give them the book, they can read it, etcetera. So I think it's a little more impactful at the small company level than it is at a large, and they go through many of the same exercises because it is the law. So I'm gonna revisit all of the exempt categories of SLA FLSA because that's a lot. But small business leaders need to comply. By the way, the changes and this is where some small business leaders may try to skirt the issue. Because when you read the law, it says this law applies to companies who have five hundred thousand dollars in revenue or are interstate commerce. And some small business in my ZIP code may say, I'm neither. I don't make five hundred thousand dollars a year, and I don't do anything interstate. Everything is local. Here's how the law actually defines interstate commerce. Do you use the mail system? Mail from a ZIP code outside of your state, your interstate commerce. Do you have a phone? Do you ever talk to anybody outside of your state, your interstate commerce? Do you use a computer where you have access to information outside of your ZIP code, your interstate commerce? Here's my advice and counsel to the small business owners. Don't try to skirt the law because you will get hit with compensatory punitive damages that may sink sink your ship. So That is a great point. Doctor p, you brought up some excellent points that, I think are worth me just reiterating, which is, you know, if you are the enterprise that, you know, Brett Hill was talking about a moment ago, you probably have some in house resources who are paid to get this right and sit down, you know, for long hours and think about this and strategize. If you're the small business, this is not your day job. This is not what you're you're paid to do some sort of operation or something different. Maybe you're an engineer. Maybe you're who started a business. Maybe you're a service provider who started a business. You don't come from this background. Maybe it is important to seek some expert help and not try to take on this daunting task on your own. With that said, gentlemen, does this boil down to a simple mathematical exercise, or is there a lot of nuance someone needs to consider before they start notifying employees of possible wage increases or a change in their their status? Just to, just to the economy and and the morale, you know, within the organization because it's gonna impact, you know, individuals differently. And it's based off of their their current situation if they are, you know, at that threshold or over, to be reclassified or if it is, impacting the organization because of the, the, overtime that's being paid, to them may then, you know, settle into their salary, their new salary, but it's still gonna cost the organizations, you know, more money. And with that, you know, it could come to a point that organizations may unfortunately have to be able to conduct some layoffs, because it is, you know, going to cost organizations more as that threshold is raised. In part, I'm dealing with humans. I have to keep them engaged. There's research to show how engagement leads to better productivity, better client satisfaction, on and on and on, and I need to mitigate risk to my company. So if you just simply make this my job is to mitigate civil penalties, punitive compensatory damages. When I'm going through all of those things, guess what the organization's not doing? We're not working for the benefit of our our customers. So I'm trying to keep this smooth operation, and I don't wanna just checkbox this. I need to critically think about this. And to your point earlier, if you need to get an external SME to consult with you, it's an investment. People say, how much does it cost to work with your organization? Doesn't cost anything. You make an investment, I'm gonna show you the ROI because we're gonna mitigate this risk. We're gonna help this become better. So that benefit, the cost benefit analysis is done. Whatever you invest should come back to you tenfold. Don't view this as a just checkbox because you may miss one of the boxes, and then Sam Stickler is gonna show up. Sam Stickler. I haven't heard that one before, but it's it's true. You gotta watch out for Sam. So let's talk about a company that does decide they need to convert a lot of staff to nonexempt hourly. Right? Do you think a lot of these companies are gonna need to make investments in just capturing a lot more people logging time than maybe they used to have in the past. And, likewise, any advice on how to communicate to staff, we're gonna see this change, because you guys have both mentioned before, there could be morale implications even if they, at the end of the day, at the end of a a year, let's say, don't actually make less. It's just a simple, change, there could be morale implications. So let's talk about the the, structural changes that might need to come with converting significant amount of staff over, and let's talk about the communication needed for a company to do that thoughtfully. I would over communicate, actually. So, you know, change management and this these laws are the first domino that's gonna result in change. So change management boils down to two things. Although there's many methodologies out there, like John Kotter, Kurt Lewin, Prosci ADKAR model. Our company offers a change management four step model. So there's a bunch of change management methodologies, Google change rule, that are proven to work. It boils down to two things, communication and training. There's a bunch of tactical things you can do, but it's communication and training. In order to get people engaged, involved, includes included, and give them a sense of belonging where they will stay engaged in your work. Overcommunicate and get them involved in dialogue. So as you implement these changes, there's gonna be a lot more conversations with the employees. And I'm not just saying put something out in an email format. Put it on the agenda of every people manager's meeting. Everybody on this state talk about this stuff, and then people managers spend more time with your employees. Exhibit with them that you care about them and you care about the things they care about. That will mitigate the risk of somebody possibly doing something, violating their integrity, increasing I'm gonna put more hours on my time card. By the way, you have to train me how to do the time card if you change from exempt to nonexempt because I've never done that before. There's more monitoring with mistakes, so I would overcommunicate. Brett, I don't know what we what what you would have. By the way, we're dealing with humans, and they they're gonna have a feeling about this. You know? My ego kicks in when you change me from exempt to nonexempt. Oh, now I'm one of those? One of the hourly workers? And I used to be a blah blah blah. And I was popping my collar, and now my titles changed, my job description. And from a hierarchy perspective, my legacy diversity characteristic belonging to that management group changed, and I feel bad. I may leave. Oh, I I agree with you, doctor p. It's it's you can't over communicate enough, and I hope that organizations take that to heart really truly because if you don't and you think of just having one conversation before there may be a change within that individual's pay, there is gonna be resentment, you know, from that employee. And to be able to have a better understanding for them to to know what these new requirements are and the reason why this is impacting them is just to their benefit to be able to learn about it. Because if not, you're gonna see that you're gonna have, you know, a culture that is is going to be eroding. You know, you're gonna have constant turnover. You're going to see, a decrease in employee engagement, and you're gonna see loss of productivity, with it. And to doctor p's point, you know, if you've never done, you know, time before, that's something that has to be trained, you know, to them to be able to have a educate them because individuals come with this status thinking that employees that are are in their exempt classification, you know, have a more of a sophisticated role. And so with that, it's just to the point that, you can't overcommunicate enough, to these individuals. Who lost a classification because they tried to play and this was pre me. I walked in to this is our environment, and they were calling me in to try to help get them out of it. I'm like, it's too late. You tried to play the game on paper, and you lost the not the, exempt status for about fifty people. And now that's gonna cost you a bunch of money. Now you have to pay them overtime. If you and if you don't pay them overtime, you're trying to manage it and say, okay. Everybody just work forty hours a week. Guess what didn't change? The work. The work is still there. So if you don't do the work, now it impacts your clients. It impacts the communities in which you operate, your brand, and you're gonna do the right thing. Yeah. Well, Brett, you you used the term the economics earlier. Some firms are gonna have the economics to just give the raises, right, to comply. Other firms are not, and those are the firms that really have to have a communication plan. Don't think that you're done once you have done the math and decided, okay. These are the folks that we have to convert. That's the beginning of the exercise. Right? The the real rubber hits the road when you start communicating with the human beings that make up your company, to doctor p's point that interact with your customers, and, and, yes, represent your brand to the marketplace. So I have another question on this topic to you guys. Someone mentioned a term pay compression. What does that mean, and why does that matter for a company that might be giving a lot of folks increases, let's say. What is pay compression, and why is that something that our listeners need to be thinking about? So, you know, pay compression occurs when, you know, there's a pay difference between the employee levels, that shrink so that it's it's higher work levels and feel that their pay advantage is no longer significant. You know, pay compression is inevitable. It's it's gonna happen. But it may require an overall evaluation of what the employee's entire compensation structure, is, and that's thinking of what what total rewards. Employers will also need to, you know, train on that, reclassified employees and their managers because if not, it could also impact, you know, work habits, including, you know, telling nonexempt workers not to respond to emails, you know, if they're not on the clock. So those are some significant changes that someone may be, you know, previously used to. It also occurs, Brett both Brett's. When you adjust somebody's salary up as some companies are gonna have to do, And their pay bands were market based minimum, midpoint maximum, and now you've adjusted them up. And then you see most of the employees are now at the top of the pay band. So what do you do? Do I adjust my entire pay band, which is then gonna increase the operational cost for payroll in comparison to my revenue? My total gross profits go down, and I have to be concerned about all that if I'm running a for profit business. Doesn't matter. For profit government or not for profit. Government less so, because they tend to deal with a bigger bucket of cash. They get approved, appropriated, and then they deal with the money. And then much of the things that they deal with comes from the office of personal management, OPM, and it kinda floats down and money goes with that. Not for profit, for profit, a little more concern. So when the pay compression happens, you may end up with people at the top of the pay ban because of this increase, and they were initially in the middle of the pay ban. Now what do you do with them next year when merits come up? Because now I'm gonna bust my top of my pay band, and then they're red circle. What they need to think about, okay. How do you communicate to the employee? I'm gonna make this adjustment. You're gonna meet this minimum requirement per law. You're at the top of the pay band for this job, and now I'm going to freeze your merit increases until the market catches up with our company. So as the information goes up, maybe we'll do a pay, pay audit for your job two years from now, and the pay band will move. Am I confusing anybody, you think? I hope not. The pay band then moves. But what do I do with that employee now for the next year? They're like, where's my merit increase? I've done I've merited an increase. I've done well. Well, we're gonna there's alternatives. So and I'm not gonna give all of the options on the table, but HR practitioners and managers have an alternative. They can say, your pay is frozen, your base, but you're still gonna get money. We're gonna still give you slide a check across the table because now we don't want and you have to explain it to them. You've compressed the pay ban. And then when we do an audit and change the jobs based on market, you know, via. So your your listeners, the listeners of this show, if they don't understand what we're talking about, get help. Also, connect with your colleagues. Other people in the HR space, you have them with Equinix. You know, together the ants eat the elephant. You don't always have to call doctor p or Brett Hill. I can call my friend who's an HR practitioner in the company. What are y'all doing? What are you gonna do, and how are you dealing with it? And exchange ideas. When you're still stuck, then you have to call in the SMEs. You gotta call in the. Yeah. That is spot on, doctor p. We're gonna move to our next topic. But before we do, Brett Hill, doctor p, any last comments? And I must say Act One is not giving legal advice on this podcast. We can in other engagements. But doctor p, Brett Hill, what are your last thoughts or or comments you want to share with our listeners about this topic? I would say for me, it goes back to, you know, the the statement that doctor p made is you can't over communicate this enough to your employees and and helping them to understand why the change is is impacting them and how it's going to happen to the organization. Even if it's not impacting them, you know, for it, have that open dialogue and communication to be able to help people to understand where these changes, of the law have occurred. And I would add this. Brett said this at the beginning of the show. Some people didn't even budget for this. Well, the HR profession has moved. We are, you know, being a strategist, an HR strategist is connecting metrics to KPIs, connecting HR metrics. A catalyst, which is where we are now as a profession, is looking at the things on the horizon and planning against those and then pushing that change in our organization. So I'm my last words to the listeners is look at the be be in compliant. The government told you this was coming. They said this is gonna happen in twenty four. This is gonna happen in twenty five, and then these check so plan for it. Be a catalyst. Talk to your organizational peers, your business partners, and make plans for this as a business no matter if you're a government, not for profit, or for profit. At the end of the day, we're all competing for the same thing, humans. Very important conversation, gentlemen. So thank you for that. I will just state that, you know, we want to, in HR or whatever space you're in, if you're just the owner of a business, be prepared especially for the one coming right up, But also sometimes these things get challenged in courts, sometimes administrations change. So we have to stay flexible, we have to stay agile, right, Doctor. P? But be prepared. No matter what, be prepared. Don't expect things to to get challenged or delayed. Be prepared for them to happen even though we know that sometimes that can happen. So be prepared for that too. Let's talk about our next topic, which is another big one that people are talking about, in our space. The nationwide ban on non compete agreements. Alright. Several business interest groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, have filed lawsuits against the FTC, claiming it's unconstitutional and outside the scope of authority for the FTC. This is set to go into effect later this year, but we anticipate delays, court challenges, and or other court rulings that may impact its implementation. However, doctor p, if the courts rule that the FTC's new rule is constitutional, the ban on non competes and allows it to proceed, How should an enterprise company prepare for, this law? Because it is the responsibility of a company to protect this proprietary information. I think historically, enterprise institutions have crept you know, there's something called inevitable disclosure doctrine, which in part is deal deals with humanity that people will inevitably disclose something to your competitor after they leave you. In response to that, enterprise organizations have crept their nondisclosure agreements and their noncompete agreements and made it broad, too broad in fact. So that's why the challenge, I think, because they're saying, for instance, as a noncompete, if you work for me and you're in an executive position, if you lead me, you cannot work in this industry, you cannot work in this geographic area for a period of time. And then as a condition of employment, I signed that. Not paying attention really to the details. I'm just excited for the new job. And now the small business administration or people are challenging the, the execution of that or the compliance with that to say, you're messing with free trade. You're messing with my constitutional rights of liberty and freedom in the pursuit of happiness. So that debate will go on. What I will tell enterprise organizations is review your MBAs, review your noncompetes, And in advance of whatever the final decision is, narrow them down to deal with your proprietary information. Don't make this broad stroke to say, you cannot work if you leave me. That that doesn't make that's a little bit broad. And I think that's where, we are now. By the way, seek general counsel. You said this twice in this show. We're not giving legal advice. So talk to your general counsel or your GCs, update your policies and procedures, provide training, but I would narrow I would narrow the focus. If I, as an executive, am talking to my peers, I'll say, look. This stuff is in the air that's being talked about. We don't know where it's gonna land. Let's review our NDAs and only deal with and restrict people from inevitably disclosing our our proprietary information. You can't give away the Coca Cola formula, but you can talk about your work experience here. I don't care. Yeah. That sounds like a sound approach. Brett Hill, if you're a smaller or midsize company, do you take a different approach? Maybe you don't have in house counsel or these these expensive outside resources from a like, a larger firm would have. How should they proceed? You know, HR can be able to, you know, certainly look at this, to be able to support their their organization, whether it be, you know, small, medium, large sized businesses. But, you know, more than ever, just as as doctor p mentioned, is protecting those trade secrets, organization. The FTC's move, you know, may empower more workers, with the in demand skills to be able to move more freely, between different companies. So creating a wider talent pool is gonna be necessary, you know, especially for smaller businesses. Thinking about the the potential mobility, you know, may mean that organizations must prioritize their engagement, you know, to be able to look at their top talent. So thinking about, you know, what is is, my strategy that I'm going to have, for these these plans, and what am I going to have for my talent strategy as well. But they may have to work harder, you know, at at revising what their employee value proposition is, fostering an inclusive work culture, having flexibility, you know, with it, and then being able to create a a a sense of belonging, you know, to be able to build that loyalty. When people feel that that level of loyalty within the organization, they're not gonna go and look elsewhere. I think you're both, alluding to a similar strategy here, which, is around yeah. Do some of this this work to look at our contracts and make sure that they're in compliance and still protect the company in legal ways, but also think twice about how you can make sure you're a great place to work so your your staff just don't need to leave and and compete with you. Right? So, gentlemen, are there any other upcoming laws, regulations, or just hot topics in general that you think our listeners who are in HR or employment should hear about or or should be thinking about, I should say? I think they need to. You know, I train as a part of the Equinix government solutions offering. We train a lot of HR people, throughout the year. A lot. So, and we publish papers and you the ActOne Group where AppleOne shows doing podcast. I would tell folks that AI, just like diversity. I always tell folks, you don't have to look for diversity. It's gonna find you. You have to make your workplace equitable, inclusive, and belonging. Now you don't know how to do that? Call us, and we'll help you put your your plan together. My book is about that entire topic. And AI is here. You cannot push the genie back put the genie back in the bottle, but do not rely on AI to solve your problem. Artificial intelligence without human input, AI without HI is fantasy. It's just gonna write you some story that will be real or not real. My advice and counsel to the listeners, pay attention to AI. Think about in fact, we have a paper coming out on it in June or July. So pay attention to our the At One Group website. You'll see a paper on the topic. AI and human capital. How to use it? AI without h I is fantasy is fantasy. I like that, doctor p, and I believe that. I think as as someone who is, you know, higher up in an organization, I'm thinking about AI, and I'm almost imagining this dream world where all of my employees are twice as productive. But the truth is is I can think about that, but if my employees don't embrace it and understand it, it's fantasy. Right? That that's the gist of it. You can sit at the top of a pyramid and just assume all these automated tasks are gonna just feel moving and shaking. But if if the actual people who have to do those tasks with the AI aren't up to speed on it and believe in it, it's fantasy. And notice, and the tool itself, if you go to a chat GPT, it will produce garbage. You will, at the prompt, ask chat GPC some GPT something, and then it produces this document. And if you actually read it, you're like, that's not right. Where did it get it from? Existing data, from open source data. So if the data is garbage out there, then the tool is going to summarize the garbage and present it to. So you must intellectually, as a human, read what you got and then make the adjustments accordingly. In addition to that, I think there's there's several states out there that are looking at different, laws to be able to, you know, implement. One of them just being Colorado, just recently was was announced in in regards to happening in February twenty twenty six. And this is really impacting, you know, risk management policies. They're gonna, you know, look at assessments, being able to to determine how individuals are hiring, you know, people into an organization. There's other states right now that are looking at this jurisdiction as well too, which is there's Illinois, there's Maryland, there's New York, Portland, Tennessee, Utah. So there's things that are out there within some of the states that are starting to to come to head as well. So not only, you know, from a, a national level, which the Department of Labor came out, you know, with their document. It's titled Department of Labor's artificial intelligence and workers excuse me, worker well-being principles for development developers and employers. That's a mouthful in itself. But it's it's talking a lot about, you know, how to be able to utilize, you know, AI principles. It's not talking about from a perspective of how you're gonna gonna hire, but how you're gonna be able to use different AI technology just within your in your life. And and, Brett, another topic that is being sustained is diversity. So there's a lot of battles by state at the federal level. It doesn't matter. And I'm telling people you don't have to look for diversity. It's here, and you can't ignore it. We cannot go back to the time where somebody's gonna say, well, we're all just humans and we're all the same. No. Generationally, just as an example, generation y and z, which is about sixty percent of the labor market, they have a different mindset, different perspectives, different values, and different behaviors. If you try to make them assimilate and say, well, when you get to this company, act like us, they're going to leave. You out of humans. The phone is still gonna ring, but you're not gonna have anybody to answer it. So we must still deal with diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging as we have to deal with it. I think we we will continue to see, you know, several of these states and and being able to have different laws that are going to affect and impact diversity. They're going to impact, you know, AI. Even if it comes from a a national level, I think it's gonna scrutinize and and and go down to, you know, just the state level and could potentially, you know, at at city levels as well. Doctor p, Brett, thank you both for your time today and sharing your wisdom, on these fascinating topics. I hope to have you guys back each quarter as things continue to develop so we can keep our listeners abreast of what's going on. And, again, they're gonna do what they need to do, but at least they heard some good ideas today from the both of you. I'd like to call all three of us the Blues Brothers because I think we're all gonna be in Chicago pretty soon. If someone wants to if someone's going to be in Chicago for SHRM or someone just wants to get in touch with either of you in general, if you're comfortable with it, why don't you share, how they could get in touch with you guys? Absolutely. So, you can contact me at at, again, at AgileOne. My email address is brett, b r e t t, h at agile, a g I l e, one dot com. And mine is two things, Milton j Perkins on LinkedIn, and you can DM me. I will normally respond with a calendar invite where we can talk, one on one. Even if it's on the weekend because I am in love with the human capital space, I don't consider myself in a having a job. I'm doing what I love, and that's it. So the other way, you can email me. It's m perkins at a I n, apple, India, Nancy, the number one, dot com. M perkins at a I n, number one, dot com. So look forward to hearing from some of you folks. Or come by our booth or shake our hands if you see us in Sherm in a couple weeks. Gentlemen, thank you. And to our listeners, have a great rest of your day. Thanks.